Martin “Marty” Raniowski, CEO of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, had helped to create strategic plans before. He’d sat in meetings, crafted mission statements, and painted visions of the future. The finished document would sit on a shelf collecting dust until the calendar rolled around to when it was time to draw up the plan’s next iteration.
“Quite frankly, a lot of our plans were very voluminous, with lots of words and not a lot of action,” Raniowski says.
But in 2021, the process and result were going to be different. Raniowski and his team at PAMED met with Patrick Ball, CEO of CBY Professional Services. After several conversations, it was clear to the society’s leadership that Ball brought the right blend of subject expertise and interpersonal skill. Ball knew how to really listen.
“He had the right knowledge base, which is fantastic, but more importantly, he had the right demeanor,” Raniowski says. “He was able to walk our board members through the process, explain what was going on, and distill what they were trying to say into manageable bites in a strategic plan that could be workable.”
‘Going in the same direction’
The partnership unfolded over the course of a year. Ball led a comprehensive discovery process, conducting surveys with a wide swath of PAMED’s 17,000-plus members, arranging focus groups, and engaging staff and leadership at all levels. CBY’s approach was inclusive and highly collaborative.
In Raniowski’s previous strategic-planning sessions, a small committee of board members developed the document. But Ball included a broad group of PAMED members, from medical school students and residents to physicians from around the state in an array of specialties.
CBY also sat down with PAMED staffers to get an overall understanding of how they viewed their roles and purpose at the society. After conducting interviews and surveys, Ball worked with the PAMED board to distill the information into the plan’s main pillars, then into practical action items, and then into a timeline.
“For the first time since I have been here, it had my board going in the same direction,” Raniowski says. “They finally realized that the plan that they agreed upon was our plan forward.”
Broadening the voices in leadership
The clarity and cohesion created by the strategic plan extended well beyond the boardroom. It provided PAMED staff with clear direction, assigned actions, and measurable goals, connecting each employee’s role to the organization’s mission. Through the developmental conversations, the PAMED board decided to incorporate in the plan sections on employee burnout and assistance to physicians and staff to help them remain happy in their careers.
“Even my person in the copy room, she always thought, ‘I’m just a copy person.’ Putting her activities in the plan helped show that if she didn’t do her job, everyone else fell apart. It made her feel more part of the whole organization,” Raniowski says.
CBY also helped PAMED expand the number of voices included in leadership, ensuring representation from physicians of different specialties, regions, and career stages. These new perspectives have made a positive difference, helping the board become more forward-thinking.
Today, as the strategic plan nears the end of its life cycle, PAMED continues to incorporate the pillars and actions into quarterly meetings and staff work, measuring progress and adjusting as needed. While the society hasn’t accomplished all of the goals laid out in the plan, it has a clear understanding of why action items did or did not reach fruition and a clear understanding of its priorities as an organization.
“I think that’s the critical difference with working with Patrick Ball and CBY,” Raniowski says. “He isn’t there just to write a document. He isn’t there to make us feel good and say, ‘Oh, you know, we use the glossy photos this time.’ He’s really there to have a living, working document that we can plug and play.”
